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On Tuesday, November 26th, Mr. Sloan, Ms. Pruett, Ms. Davis, Mrs. Beaton and Ms. Parnell had a typing contest to see who could type the fastest. Ms. Scibelli was the referee. Mr. Sloan triumphed in first, with Ms. Pruett right behind him in second, Ms. Davis coming up at third, and Ms. Parnell finishing at fourth. The topics they typed about were “Test Instructions,” “The Enchanted Typewriter,” and “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” How do our teachers feel about this contest? Mr. Sloan joked, “I felt okay. I did not expect to win. Umm…I did not expect to blow the competition away like I did. I just said that to make Ms. Pruett upset.” What are Ms. Pruett’s thoughts about the typing contest? She says, “I feel defeated! I felt so confident! He (Mr. Sloan) was like a sleeper…I can’t believe how fast he types! Maybe at the end of the year we’ll have a rematch. I don’t feel so confident anymore!” Ms. Davis feels that, “I thought it was very enjoyable. I was very impressed with Mr. Sloan’s typing speed and I was surprised at how many errors Ms. Pruett had in the final round, but I understand that she was trying to beat Mr. Sloan. I was kind of disappointed at my score because I scored less than in my practice rounds.” What does Ms. Parnell think? She says, “I liked it, it was fun!” Ms. Scibelli would like to say that, “It was fun, it was exciting! I thought it was a good experience to teach students the importance of typing quickly and accurately.” An end-of-the-year rematch will certainly be thrilling! We can hardly wait!

The play “Surfin Summer” was directed by the talented Nathan Colby! The play takes place during the summer of 1963 and the kids of Point West Beach in Southern California have just graduated from high school and are looking to their futures. Sandy wants to start a singing group called “Sandy and the Sonics” with best friends Zoey and Joanie. Yup wants to live on the beach for the rest of his life. Vinny is going to be in charge of the beach food shack, Ziggy’s, while his Aunt Ziggy, the owner, takes a trip to Greece. Everything changes when the teens learn that the next Gina and Johnny film “Surfin’ Summer” will be filmed at Point West Beach and they were using local kids as extras. The teens get disappointed when they see how the stars of the movie act in real life. Sandy gets brainwashed in becoming the star of “Sandy and the Sonics”, Zoey and Joanie think so.

The play was acted out by very talented OMS students, but the actors shouldn’t get all of the credit. There was very colorful lighting in the background that really went with the beach setting. The sounds were always on time; bravo sound crew. The stage crew were very quick, and also prepared for any surprises on stage. The costume crew was very detailed on what they put on the actors and could be prepared for anything that may happen to the costumes. I saved the bests for last: the dramaturges. The dramaturges made sure the actors knew what they were talking about during the play so that it would be easier to memorize the lines. The dramaturges research about the play. I was a dramaturge for the OMS Fall Play, and I got to decorate a display and I also had the opportunity to be inside of the display. I also got to usher with another dramaturge. There was an after party for the cast and crew; it even snowed! During the after party, the cast and crew saw a slide show of them practicing for the play that the parents who helped.

This year’s annual food drive was a great success. It would not have been possible to get all of the food collected without everyone’s contributions. This year’s school total was 3,918, a new school record. Eight white came in first for the 8th graders with 825 items. Eight green was very close behind them with 824. Good luck next year 8 green. Eight blue needs to step it up next year, they came in last for the 8th graders with 265. Seven blue came in first with 554 and seven white was close behind with 520. If seven white was handing in more food in the beginning we would have had a better chance of coming in first. Every team did well this year; let’s keep it up next year!

Lately, everyone’s been fussing about global warming and killing the Earth. But sadly, not many people who mentioned global warming worked hard enough to actually take action and start conserving. In this article, I’m going to talk about how schools are slowly trying to save Earth and the people living in it. In Oak Middle School, there are two bins in each classroom: one for recycling paper and one for recycling plastic bottles. So, over the year, students and teachers, maybe even visitors decide to use paper and bottles, and then discover that they don’t need it anymore. Instead of throwing it away and wasting a tree, they toss the paper and plastic bottles in the correct bins. After one or two weeks of tossing paper and plastic, one set of students gets the recycle bins from every classroom and sorts them into larger, rolling recycling bins. These bins get brought to a recycling company to be sorted once again. After everything’s sorted and there’s a difference between paper and plastic, they somehow manage to break everything into bits and then create new things out of them. It’s like using an egg carton as a good place for a mini garden, except that the egg carton isn’t an egg carton anymore, it’s actually used to garden little plants! So, to end this article, I leave you to ponder on this last sentence. How can I save the Earth?

One thing I was very excited about was what we were going to do on Halloween in school. When I got to school I was shocked to see that we has the Amazon Rainforest test. Luckily I had Social Studies in the afternoon so I didn’t have to worry about that yet! First period I went to Gym and we didn’t do anything special. After that, I arrived at ELA. Mrs. Pruett said that you could only have a pencil so I had to go back into my locker and put my stuff away. I was prepared to do something fantastic in ELA. When I walked into the classroom it was dark and she told us to put heads down and told us a scary story, then we continued the story by writing on lined paper. When I left I went to math where we played an awesome math game with dice with Mrs. Freedman. Later our group arrived at Science. Mrs. Scibelli said that we are going to watch a Skelton video. Luckily we didn’t have to take notes so I was pleased. I was shocked when I got to Social Studies when had the Amazon Rain Forest test. It was short and easy and we saw the music video of thriller. Lastly we saw “What Does the Fox Say”. I was super excited to hear that we were going home and I was prepared to have a great Halloween.

It’s the first week with the brand new cafeteria program. Here are the few basic steps of this new and improved plan. When you walk in everything’s normal; you get in line and get your lunch. But once you reach the registers everything gets a little bit more complicated. If you look down you will notice a calculator-looking object where it says “enter student ID”. You will then punch in your code and this will allow the cashier to access your account. If you looked on the computer screen you would notice there is your school picture, an amount of money, and all food choices. The amount of money shows how much you have put into your account. Once you buy something the amount will decrease. As soon as an item has been purchased an email gets sent home, telling your parents and guardians what food you have bought and the money left in your account. This new program is a little complicated, but after a while everybody will get the hang of it.

The Oak Middle School gym is used for many different activities. It was originally built in 1950. Some interesting features of the gym include the dividing wall, weight rooms and a giant equipment closet. The building was a high school once so 7th to 8th graders can experience the high school facility. Overall most kids really enjoy gym class but there are some important rules that you need to follow such as reporting to attendance lines on time, not touching equipment until told to, no chewing gum or candy, dress appropriately, wear sneakers, be safe, and treat others the way you want to be treated. There are 6 gym classes a day – three 7th grade classes and three 8th grade classes. The gym is not just used for classes; it is also used for many other activities such as assemblies, fundraisers, spirit week, and after school activities. The gym teacher coach LaRose has been working there for thirteen years. Maintenance includes daily sweeping and floor washing periodically. In addition the school will resurface the floor to make it nice and shiny. There are variety of exercises you would do in PE to work on muscle strength, endurance, and flexibility.